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Just before Christmas, Parliament passed Canada’s new anti-spam and anti-spyware law, commonly referred to as FISA, or the “Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act” (Industry Canada release here). The law will be bought into force later this year to give Canadians time to prepare. Broadly, the law prohibits the sending of commercial messages without recipient consent, and prohibits the installation of computer program’s without consent. It’s quite a complex piece of legislation and carries stiff penalties – you should consider its applicability to your practices and make the necessary adjustments before it comes into force.

Much has been written about the new law – some of my favourite pieces are by my friend David Canton here, here and here, by Simon Fodden here, and by some of the larger law firms – McCarthy’s here and Davies here, for example. I’ll be saving pieces on the legislation to this tag.